- Trump ally Bill Pulte under investigation by congressional watchdog
Source: Axios
“The Government Accountability Office confirmed Thursday it opened a probe into Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte, amid complaints about Pulte’s efforts to go after President Trump’s opponents. The GAO inquiry will raise the heat on Pulte, who is also reportedly caught up in a grand jury probe related to the various mortgage fraud investigations he has pursued this year. … As the nation’s top housing regulator, Pulte used the role to accuse perceived Trump administration rivals of mortgage fraud.” (12/04/25)
- UK: Regime demands £1 million bribe from porn company for being insufficiently intrusive on its customers
Source: Engadget
“The UK has fined a porn operator called AVS Group £1 million ($1.33 million) for failing to have strong enough age checks, regulator Ofcom announced. The company which was also hit with an additional £50,000 fine for its failure to respond to information request and now has 72 hours to introduce effective age checks or face a further penalty of £1,000 a day. In July, the UK government announced it would start checking compliance by websites that publish or display pornographic content to implement a system for ‘highly effective age checks.’ Methods approved by Ofcom include credit card checks, photo ID matching and even estimating a user’s age with a provided selfie. However, users have been circumventing the age checks via methods like using a VPN and providing a fake ChatGPT-generated photo ID.” (12/04/25)
- Lithuania: Court convicts the leader of a governing party of inciting hatred against Jews
Source: ABC News
“A Lithuanian court on Thursday convicted the leader of one of the parties in the country’s coalition government for making antisemitic comments and fined him 5,000 euros (about $5,800). The district court in the capital, Vilnius, found that Remigijus Žemaitaitis incited hatred against Jews, grossly downplayed Nazi Germany’s crimes and grossly minimized the Holocaust in an offensive and insulting manner. The punishment fell short of prosecutors’ call for him to be fined 51,000 euros (around $60,000) and ordered to pay into a fund for victims of crimes. The case relates to social media posts and public statements from May and June 2023 in which, among other things, he wrote: ‘Apparently, for our journalists and local Lithuanian Jews, the demolition of schools in Palestine is yet another pastime?!’ He also quoted an antisemitic nursery rhyme and made comments related to events during World War II.” (12/04/25)
- FBI makes arrest in investigation into pipe bombs placed in DC on eve of Capitol riot
Source: SFGate
“The FBI made an arrest on Thursday in its nearly 5-year-old investigation into pipe bombs placed outside the headquarters of the Republican and Democratic national parties in Washington on the eve of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. The arrest marks the first time investigators have settled on a suspect in an act that had long vexed law enforcement, spawned a multitude of conspiracy theories and remained an enduring mystery in the shadow of the dark chapter of American history that is the violent Capitol siege. The suspect in custody has been identified as Brian Cole, according to three people familiar with the matter. Two of the people said he lived in Woodbridge, Virginia, a Washington suburb. No other details were immediately available, including the charges Cole might face. The people who described the arrest weren’t authorized to publicly discuss a case that hasn’t yet been made public and spoke on the condition of anonymity.” (12/04/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/fbi-makes-arrest-in-investigation-into-pipe-bombs-21222839.php
- Appeals court restores longer bribery sentence for former NYC jail union chief
Source: US News & World Report
“A federal appeals court restored the 58-month prison sentence for Norman Seabrook, the former head of New York City’s correction officers union who was convicted of bribery, saying a trial judge should not have reduced the sentence because it was much longer than that of the hedge fund founder who bribed him. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said ‘nothing extraordinary and compelling’ justified U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein’s decision in February 2023 to grant Seabrook, who led the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association, compassionate release after he served 21 months in prison. … Prosecutors accused Seabrook, 65, of steering $20 million of union members’ money to Platinum [Partners] in exchange for a $60,000 cash bribe from [Murray] Huberfeld, which was delivered in a Salvatore Ferragamo bag. The union lost about $19 million of its investment.” (12/04/25)
- As New Details Emerge, Human Rights Group Warns US Gaza Plan Will Impose “Unlawful Collective Imprisonment” of Palestinians
Source: Common Dreams
“A prominent international human rights organization is warning that the United States’ plan for postwar Gaza will impose ‘unlawful collective imprisonment’ on the Palestinian civilians who have survived two years of genocide. In November, several news outlets reported on the Trump administration’s plan to carve Gaza in two: a so-called ‘green zone’ controlled by Israel and a ‘red zone’ controlled by the militant group Hamas. The US would construct what it called ‘Alternative Safe Communities’ for Palestinians to live in the Israeli-controlled portion of Gaza, which is over half of the territory under the current ‘ceasefire’ agreement. The New York Times described these communities as ‘compounds’ of 20,000 to 25,000 people, where Israeli officials reportedly argued they should not be allowed to leave.” (12/04/25)
- Black Friday Despite? No, Black Friday Because.
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp“Americans, the Associated Press reports, spent a record $11.8 billion online on ‘Black Friday’ (the day after Thanksgiving) this year … and another record, $6.4 billion on Thanksgiving itself. Physical in-store traffic for Black Friday also ticked up versus the previous week, although shopping for deals has strongly moved online in recent years. What caught my eye about the story, though, was the headline, which suggests the record sales occurred ‘despite wider economic uncertainty.’ ‘Despite?’ More likely, in my opinion, ‘because.’ With inflation still running at about 3% annually, prices subject to Donald Trump’s seemingly random tariff policies, the job situation looking more uncertain and unpredictable than it has since the COVID-19 panic, etc., what have American consumers been up to? I can tell you what they’ve been up to, because I’ve been up to it myself. What we’ve all been up to is ‘waiting for the best deal if the purchase isn’t an emergency.'” (12/04/25)
- The Constitution vs. the Commander-in-Chief: The Duty to Disobey Unlawful Orders
Source: CounterPunch
by John W Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead“Every military servicemember’s oath is a pledge to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. It is not an oath to a politician. It is not an oath to a party. And it is not an oath to the police state. Yet what happens when those same men and women are being told—by their own government—that obedience to power and loyalty to a political leader come before allegiance to the Constitution they swore to uphold? That question isn’t hypothetical. It is the moral line now being tested in real time, and it goes to the heart of what kind of country we are: do we live in a constitutional republic governed by the rule of law, or in a militarized police state where ‘legality’ is whatever the person with the most power and the biggest army say it is?” (12/04/25)
- Vibecession: Much More Than You Wanted To Know
Source: Astral Codex Ten
by Scott Alexander“Young people complain they’ve been permanently locked out of opportunity. They will never become homeowners, never be able to support a family, only keep treading water at precarious gig jobs forever. They got a 5.9 GPA and couldn’t get into college; they applied to 2,051 companies in the past week without so much as a politely-phrased rejection. Sometime in the 1990s, the Boomers ripped up the social contract where hard work leads to a pleasant middle-class life, replacing it with a hellworld where you will own nothing and numb the pain with algorithmic slop. The only live political question is whether to blame immigrants, blame billionaires, or just trade crypto in the hopes that some memecoin buys you a ticket out of the permanent underclass. Meanwhile, economists say things have never been better.” (12/04/25)
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/vibecession-much-more-than-you-wanted
- The Horseshoe of Doom: Populists Left and Right Say America Is Failing. The Facts Don’t.
Source: Reason
by Veronique de Rugy“The populist poles of the left and right are now linked in what political scientists call the ‘horseshoe.’ As each gets further from the center, it bends closer toward its counterpart on the other side. Both distrust markets, both want to micromanage industry, both are protectionist, both romanticize manufacturing work and resent the disruptions that come from open global competition. Both, in other words, are hostile to the core tenets of the liberal economic order that made America prosperous. Each side blames a different villain. For the left, it’s corporations and rich people; for the right, it’s immigrants and trade. But both sides insist that a brighter future is possible only through top-down political control, and neither wants to confront the real risk: a government already too large, spending money it doesn’t have and drifting toward fiscal crisis.” (12/04/25)
- The Veil of Chains: Awakening Liberty Through the Greater Shadow
Source: Agorist Nexus
by Brandon Aragon“Voting and making government more efficient only evolve tyranny to become more successful, giving false hope, making government easier to bear on the people, while tightening the chains. The Daughters of Liberty didn’t beg Parliament for lower taxes — they built parallel supply chains. Agorists do the same today: Monero instead of fiat, 3D-printed receivers instead of Form 4473s, mutual-aid networks instead of FEMA handouts, home churches and private schools instead of licensed 501(c)(3) compliance. Agorism is far from nihilism — it’s the proactive blueprint for a brighter future, harnessing innovations like cryptocurrencies for untaxed trade, 3D printing for self-reliant manufacturing, and sustainable agricultural techniques such as Walipini underground greenhouses to foster independence, (all year round greenhouses). Voting, on the other hand, veers closer to nihilism: people shrug, pick between two rotten options, and claim it’s the only path, all while surrendering to the system’s slow decay.” (12/04/25)
https://www.agoristnexus.com/the-veil-of-chains-awakening-liberty-through-the-greater-shadow/
- Don’t Believe the Left [sic], the Tennessee Election Was a Big GOP Win
Source: Town Hall
by Derek Hunter“There’s this thing in politics where people scramble to find something ‘good’ to talk about for their side, no matter how bad reality happens to be. It’s like someone being blown up in a terrorist attack, but their pants were not stained or torn at all – whew! It’s a special kind of ‘missing the forest for the trees’ you can only find in politics and dysfunctional relationships. Under the banner of ‘Tennessee Election Result Is a Fire Alarm for Republicans’, the editors at Newsweek have declared the results of a special election in December of an off-year to be something Republicans need to set their hair on fire over. Why? Because the Republican only won by 9 points in a district that Donald Trump carried by 22.” (12/04/25)
- AI’s Global Realignment
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Jake Scott“For many people, ‘AI’ is something small that fits neatly in their pockets, confined to their 6.1″ phone screen, consigned to a little icon that lurks on their home screen or in a folder labeled ‘productivity.’ … But in Southeast Asia, ‘AI’ is something real, tangible, physical—and increasingly intrusive. The region has long been recognized as the most attractive place for global tech firms to invest when it comes to growing their AI capacities, with over $55 billion having been poured in by major tech companies already—a figure that is expected to double by 2028—and it’s easy to see why. Southeast Asia in general benefits from low energy costs, vast tracts of undeveloped land, and—crucially—readily accessible water.” (12/04/25)
- The Death of the Latest Ukraine Peace Pipe Dream
Source: The Realist Review
by Martin Sieff“After a month of effort, the picture is sadly and depressingly clear: The old, all too familiar broken equation remains jammed into place: There will be no peace deal on Ukraine, the remorseless virtual annihilation of the Ukrainian people will continue. US President Donald Trump and his top team genuinely want peace: But they have been blocked, pressured, brainwashed, love bombed and intimidated by the US Deep State and the leaders of Britain, France, Germany and NATO into refusing to pay the price that Russia insists must be paid for a war that Moscow has already won. Thus, the long slow remorseless drift into the abyss of global thermonuclear war continues. Indeed, it is likely to accelerate.” (12/04/25)
https://therealistreview.substack.com/p/the-death-of-the-latest-ukraine-peace
- What non-economists often misunderstand
Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Madsen Pirie“Many people equate economics with the stock market, personal finance and business management. Whereas what economists actually study are incentives, choices, trade-offs, markets, institutions, and how scarce resources are allocated. Money is involved, but it’s only one piece. Non-economists tend to ignore trade-offs. They often assume we can have lower taxes and higher spending, or strict environmental rules and unchanged consumer costs. Many think we can have price controls and no shortages. Economists emphasize opportunity cost; everything has a cost, even if it isn’t a monetary one. Non-economists sometimes confuse individual behaviour with aggregate behaviour, reasoning from personal experience. They say things such as ‘I lost my job, so the economy must be worse,’ or ‘I’m spending more, so inflation must be rising.’ Economists focus on aggregate interactions, which often behave differently from individual components.” (12/04/25)
https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/what-non-economists-often-misunderstand
- Sorry If This Is Antisemitic, But I Think It’s Wrong To Train Dogs To Rape Prisoners
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone“One thing I try not to think about very often is how many reports we’ve been seeing about Israeli prison guards training dogs to rape Palestinian captives in torture camps like Sde Teiman. Drop Site News has a new write-up about a testimony from a journalist published by the Palestinian Journalists Protection Center. The reporter says that during his 20 months of hell in Israeli prisons he was electrocuted, beaten, starved, and sexually assaulted on film. He also says he was sexually assaulted by ‘a trained dog’ — just the latest in a long string of such allegations coming out of Israel’s notorious network of torture prisons. Last month Novara Media published an article titled ‘Israeli Prison Guards Are Using Dogs to Rape Palestinians, Former Detainees Say’, based on information collected by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.” (12/04/25)
- What the Economics of Envy Can’t Answer
Source: The Daily Economy
by Donald J Boudreaux“Forced redistribution dominates public discourse about wealth inequality, yet much of the debate overlooks how people earn, trade, innovate, and create value.” (12/04/25)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/economics-of-envy-cant-answer/
- Lammy’s assault on juries exposes the futility of the ECHR
Source: spiked
by Luke Gittos“There is a grim irony to David Lammy’s plan to restrict jury trials. This week, the UK justice secretary confirmed that juries would be abolished for all criminal trials where the maximum penalty faced by defendants is less than three years’ jail time. He claims that a court backlog of 80,000 cases, and a consequent delay in bringing matters to trial, had made this necessary. Yet in doing so, Lammy is undermining a significant chunk of his own life’s work.” (12/04/25)
https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/12/04/lammys-war-on-juries-exposes-the-futility-of-the-echr/
- Integralism by Another Name
Source: Law & Liberty
by James M Patterson“Postliberals would much rather spar over definitions than over the ideas and their implications.” (12/04/25)
- The end of the climate cult: A long, lucrative ride
Source: The Spectator
by Matt Ridley“Finally, thankfully, the global warming craze is dying out. To paraphrase Monty Python, the climate parrot may still be nailed to its perch at the recent COP summit in Belém, Brazil – or at Harvard and on CNN – but elsewhere it’s dead. It’s gone to meet its maker, kicked the bucket, shuffled off this mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. By failing to pledge a cut in fossil fuels, COP achieved less than nothing, the venue caught fire, the air-conditioning malfunctioned – and delegates were told on arrival not to flush toilet paper. Bill Gates’s recent apologia, in which he conceded that global warming ‘will not lead to humanity’s demise’, after he closed the policy and advocacy office of his climate philanthropy group is just the latest nail in the coffin.” (12/04/25)
https://thespectator.com/topic/climate-politics-come-down-to-earth/
- What Really Makes a “Land of the Free”
Source: Tenth Amendment Center
by Michael Boldin“‘For WHO ARE A FREE PEOPLE?’ John Dickinson, the ‘Penman of the American Revolution,’ posed this timeless question in 1767. His answer defied the modern narrative. It’s not a system where you hope to find rulers who respect your constitution and liberty. That’s just luck. A population on its knees, begging for scraps. In his Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, Dickinson defined a true ‘land of the free.’ In doing so, he exposed the trap governments use to establish tyranny, and the fatal error the people make that guarantees it.” (12/04/25)
https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2025/12/03/what-really-makes-a-land-of-the-free/
- Now it’s clear why Trump got rid of the top military lawyers
Source: Los Angeles Times
by Jackie Calmes“At least President Trump didn’t ‘kill all the lawyers’ first, literally following Shakespeare’s words in ‘Henry VI, Part 2’ on evading the rule of law. Instead, just a month into his second term in February, he and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth simply fired the top lawyers at the Army, Navy and Air Force, known as judge advocates general, or JAGs. ‘It’s what you do when you’re planning to break the law: You get rid of any lawyers who might try to slow you down,’ Georgetown Law professor Rosa Brooks said at the time, according to the New York Times. She wasn’t alone in her fear, or her prescience.” (12/04/25)
- Rational Thieves
Source: Pierre Lemieux
by Pierre Lemieux“Why has the theft of copper wires increased so much recently? For an answer, don’t look at ‘culture’ or other such black boxes.” (12/04/25)
- Unpacking the Dangerous Myth of “Narco-Terrorism”
Source: Common Dreams
by Brett Heinz“Between the War on Drugs and the War on Terror, the US government has a long history of waging bloody and unsuccessful wars against broad concepts that can not be meaningfully defeated. What makes the government’s latest ‘armed conflict’ unique is not just its combination of these two failures, but also that its target (‘narco-terrorism’) is largely a myth. Under the title “Operation Southern Spear,” the Trump administration has launched a campaign intended to target the drug cartels that it designated as terrorist organizations earlier this year. So far, this has involved at least 21 airstrikes, killing upwards of 83 people on small boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific; a military buildup involving 15,000 troops; and covert operations by the CIA in Venezuela. Though President Donald Trump lacks the legal authority for these activities, the Senate’s latest attempt to restrain military action failed in a narrow vote of 49-51.” (12/04/25)
- Increasing Housing Supply
Source: EconLog
by Kevin Corcoran“Modular housing is gaining prominence as a proposed way to increase the housing supply. This is an approach where the majority of home building is done off-site. Factories will construct entire rooms of a house, including all the wiring and plumbing connections built in. At the final construction site, the actual building process consists of the final step of connecting the rooms, plumbing, and so forth, to complete the build. Building in this way is faster and less expensive than traditional home building. … People might think that these companies increase the housing supply by, well, building more housing. But building more housing isn’t an increase in supply, it’s an increase in quantity supplied. An increase in supply means an increase in the capacity to produce something.” (12/04/25)
- Trump’s Broken Promise of “One Million Apprentices”
Source: Washington Monthly
by Anne Kim“As part of his promise to restore American manufacturing and the fortunes of the working class, President Donald Trump pledged to expand trade apprenticeships. In an April executive order, Trump directed the Department of Labor to deliver within 120 days a plan ‘to reach and surpass 1 million new active apprentices.’ That deadline has passed, with no evidence of progress or even a plan to reach the one-million apprenticeship milestone. Instead, drastic layoffs, funding cuts, and a purge of ‘DEI’-related initiatives have sabotaged the emerging apprenticeship movement. Growth in apprenticeships is at its slowest in years, far more sluggish than during Joe Biden’s administration or even the president’s first term.” (12/04/25)
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2025/12/04/trump-one-million-apprenticeships-broken-promise/
- The Libertarian Angle, 12/04/25
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
“The U.S. versus Venezuela.” (12/04/25)
- Politics Politics Politics, 12/04/25
Source: Politics Politics Politics
“January 6th Pipe Bomber Arrested? The Great 2026 Primary Draft (with Evan Scrimshaw).” (12/04/25)
https://www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/p/january-6th-pipe-bomber-arrested
- Conflicts of Interest, episode 857
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Netanyahu Boycotts Vote on Trump’s Gaza Peace Plan.” (12/04/25)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/kyle/coi-857-netanyahu-boycotts-vote-on-trumps-gaza-peace-plan
- Finding Freedom, 12/04/25
Source: Lions of Liberty
“Polyworking: Why One Job Isn’t Enough in 2025.” (12/04/25)
https://www.lionsofliberty.com/episodes/ff-polyworking-why-one-job-isnt-enough-in-2025
- Rising, 12/04/25
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave gives his radar on the fallout from Minnesota Governor Tim Walz allegedly ignoring reports of welfare fraud that cost his state a billion dollars.” (12/04/25)
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/5633247-rising-december-4-2025/